The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, December 01, 1897, Image 17
16 THE BATTALION. ard; in conversation, on the contrary, unless he bean out and out hypocrite, a man is himself. “ Out of the fullness of his heart his mouth speaks.” Then, there is another side to it. I have no hesitation in saying, that from conversation, and not books, a man obtains nine tenths of his knowledge and much of the encouragement which leads him to search for the remaining tenth in the treasury of books and stored learning. Book knowledge is, of course, the most reliable, but it is not enough. You remember Bacon’s oft-quoted remark: “Read ing makes the full man, writing the exact man, conversation the ready man.” It is this impression readiness of the good conversationalist which is the flavor and spice, so to speak of imparted knowledge. The wise Socrates made use of it in imparting his doctrines. The “ salons ” or conversation al assemblies under the auspices of the learned and witty ladies of Paris during Lewis XIY’s reign were the headquar ters of wisdom. The hospitable Holland house of London in the early days of Victoria’s reign, the School of Concord Philosophy which assembled about Ralph Waldo Emerson, our elegant anti-bellum Southern homes, which have never been surpassed in the cultivation of sprightly conversation of the most elevated character. These and many more can be adduced as instances of the educating and refining influence of cultured social intercourse. But this subject of conversation has too a moral and re ligious side. The Bible is hilled with precepts as to the abuse of speech and the power of the tongue for good and evil. The translators of our bible use the word conversation in a different sense from present usage. The word meant in King Jame’s day the sum of social relationships. Hence, when St. Paul says “ Our conversation is in Heaven ” he means our social being as Christians, our citizenship. “ To order one’s conversation aright” means to arrange one’s social life justly. The abuse of conversation; what a held opens up to our serious study with the mere mention of it; God has given us the physicial adaptation and the inventive